Independent study of mail transit times in Europe

Deutsche Post World Net amongst the best once again

Bonn, 10/09/2003, 11:30 AM CEST

Deutsche Post World Net's results for the first half of 2003 put them once again amongst the world's best when it comes to mail transit times within Europe. Up until the end of 2003 over one million test letters, of different formats and weights, will be sent across 306 country-to-country mail routes in Europe and across 430 city-to-city routes within and between North America and Europe. In the first half of 2003, over 96 percent of the test letters processed by Deutsche Post World Net reached their national and overseas destinations within three days, thus complying with the internationally agreed standard. The result is clearly higher than the European average of 94.2 percent.

In comparison with 1994, when the independent testing of European mail transit times began, overall the results illustrate a continual improvement in quality of over 24 percentage points. Within these nine years, the average transit time of cross-border letters within Europe has been shortened by about a day - to 2.2 days.

The comparison of transit times for priority international letters is conducted in the UNEX study, which is commissioned by the International Post Corporation (IPC) - a cooperative association of 23 world-wide leading postal companies*. The measurement of mail transit times is conducted independently and without the involvement of the postal companies.

Deutsche Post has especially good mail transit times with the following countries: Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. For letters to these countries the quality target, as defined by the EU Directive for postal services, has been exceeded by over 10 percentage points. The Directive states that 85 percent of intra-EU priority letters should by delivered within three days.

The average mail transit times with these countries are slightly over two days. In view of the globalisation of markets, Deutsche Post is expanding its international products and services, and is improving the speed and reliability in cross-border mail.

The UNEX system (Unipost External Monitoring System) is the most extensive and most complex operations analysis of its kind. Naturally the system conforms to the EU Commission's requirements with regard to service quality measurements, which also include a uniform, reliable system for monitoring transit times within the EU.